Preston's Milestones

Time sure does fly by when you are watching your baby grow. This weekend was a huge one for little P. He has finally figured out how to pull him self up on things, he first did this at Bonnie's house on Saturday and everyone got to see it for the first time with Russ and I. Now I think last night was a bigger accomplishment. Little P has been doing his own type of crawl for a while now, well last night he finally crawled on his hands and knees - he was trying to get to the garbage can a little faster :)
So with all these new accomplishment's Russ gets to baby proof the house, which means we have to go buy new gates for the stairs, the hallway and kitchen.

Christmas at Bonnie's House

We had an early Christmas at Bonnie's house today. The kids had a ton of fun opening presents, the best expression was Izaiah when he opened his Lego set (thanks Hannah). In one of the pics you will see Preston pulling himself up on the table, yup he is starting that phase now I am so excited that I get to see him do new things everyday.
As you can tell the kids had fun going outside to play in the snow, but boy was it cold. They went out to play right as a new storm was heading in which made it even colder out there for them, needless to say I think they got to play in the snow for maybe 10-15mins before we had to hit the road before it got to bad.
We had a great time and it was fun to see everyone.

Another Snowday

So I thought yesterday was bad, boy was I wrong. Last night it started to snow again at about 5ish or so, well I woke up this morning to 8-10inch of snow - yes you heard me right(for you followers in NC I haven't seen this much snow in a really long time)and it hasn't stopped snowing at all today. Right now Madie and Izaiah are out playing in it some more, I don't think they understand that it's not going anywhere for a while. Oh well I guess I will have to really rely on my wonderful husband Russ to take me places if I want to go anywhere, as I don't drive in it. We are suppose to get more snow next week, oh how that will be fun driving over the pass to visit Russ's parents for Christmas if we go I will post about our fun drive there.

Right now here are some pictures (that I just took) from today, enjoy!

Snow Day!!

The kids had fun making a snowman and snow angels in the front yard, even P went outside to see what was going on.

Preston's First Cookie

I finally gave in and gave P a teething biscuit, boy did he love it.

Madie and Preston

Miss. Madie loves to be the little mommy of Preston, and she does a really good job at it. On this particular day I was busy getting dinner ready for the family and Preston was tired so she decided that she was big enough to rock him to sleep and she did. Way to go Madie.

Captain Conner

Conner decided that he wanted to have a little fun at the end of dinner one night - what a character.

It's finally winter!!!

Today
Last week
It finally feels like winter here, it snowed last night! For the last couple of weeks the weather has been crazy just ask the roses in the front yard :)

While we were at a Christmas party last night it was snowing, but not too much that I couldn't drive there (for any of you that know me I hate the snow) but on the way home Russ got the pleasure to drive us home. The kids were in awe that it was snowing so we had a snow fight in the parking lot, and of course Conner didn't listen and fell into the grass and got soaked - poor little guy was crying the whole way home.
Today should be very interesting as the kids just want to go and play outside, and let me tell you it's freezing out there. I don't remember ever wanting to go outside and play when it was this cold, but what ever make's them happy and tired I'm fine with.

Football Fun

This past Saturday Russ played the final game of football for his reach team, so this kids and I decide to go and watch him play.

The kids were only interested for all of 5seconds, so I watched him play and let the kids run around and play at the park.

Oh, if you are wondering who won, Russ's team did, Way to go guys!

Playing until I fell a Sleep

So I left little P out in the living room to play on the floor while I ran around the house this afternoon. I heard him talking to himself and playing with Izaiah's book bag, and then all of a sudden I didn't hear him - so of course I was a little concerned well to my amazement he put him self to sleep playing on the floor.



I guess he was ready for his afternoon nap, lucky little fellow (I could use one right about now).

Preston

I love all the new things that little P can do. He has been sitting by himself for about a week now, and he is really working on the crawling thing to.

As you can tell little P is getting a little too big to be taking his bath in the kitchen sink, boy does he love to splash and get everything all wet - he thinks it's funny to do that.


And I can't help but snap the pics of him sleeping, my favorite one is of him holding his toy in the bassinet.

Fun Times

Fun times at the deJong house!

Thanksgiving

This year it was our turn to have Thanksgiving at our house, and I was super excited to host it but there were a few bumps in the road this year so we went over to Russ's parents this year. The trip over was great, Preston slept the whole time, the big kids watched Shrek 3 and Russ and I talked the whole way - it was prefect drive, plus we got to see some awesome scenery the sun setting on the mountains was so beautiful.
So with Russ's mom out of commission Amanda and I were left to cook the dinner. We planned to eat at 5 o'clock since Steve(Russ's dad) had to go to work, so we took the turkey out of the fridge at about 12:45 and of course it was still a little frozen (come on we have all had this happen to us at least once) so we gave the turkey a warm bath - because we needed to eat by 5, all five of the kids were going to be starving by that time and we needed to get Steve off to work with a full belly. So while Amanda attended to all the other fixings (potatoes, yams etc...) I got to attend to the bird, so I let him soak for about half an hour and much to my surprise he was ready to go. At this point we are about an hour behind schedule getting him into the roaster (the roaster is the best invention ever) so I got the bird all ready to go, made up a special seasoning recipe and put that bird in the roaster at 2:05 and much to everyone's amazement he was done at 4:45 -yes I said the bird was done (fully cooked we checked it 3 times before we took it out) before 5 o'clock (that is why I love my roaster) I'm sure record time for anyone. The food was amazing and the dessert spread was even better.

Happy Thanksgiving!

Winter Pineapple Classic

I am so proud of my husband, a couple of Sunday's ago he went and ran a 5k obstacle course with a couple of people from his work. Here are his stats: Time 33:08 minutes, 1116 out of 3222 for the entire group and for the men's group he came was 594 out of 1213.
Way to go Russ!

New Kids On The Block

Yes you read it right, I am going to the concert tonight with a bunch of girl friends, it should be fun. I do feel bad though, Russ (my wonderful husband) will be taking on the task of caring for our four children. Russ is very capable of caring for them, I am more worried about baby P - this will be the first time we will be apart for more than 2hrs, I hope and pray that he will be good and not cry too much for Russ. I have asked Madie (aka Mini Mom) to help dad out with him, she is really good at feeding him his bottle's and changing diapers, yes she dose diapers.
I will update you all on how the concert was tomorrow.

****Update**** the concert was so fun, they were awesome and the seats were amazing, way to go Tania on the seats.

Cute Kids & Russ

Fort

With no school again today, the kids asked if they could have friends over so yes that would mean in my already small house I have 7 kids in it at this moment - yes I am crazy for letting them do this. Oh well they are having fun and playing very well together.

Here they all are in the for they made in the dinning room with chairs and stools:
Izaiah, Madison, Conner, Ryder, Jade and Austin:

Hollywood

Do you remember the no school days as a kid? Well I do, I use to sit around and watch MTV, reruns of I Love Lucy (with my grandma) and every once in a while I would go and play with my friends or siblings. Well know that I have kids and stay home with them 24/7 I have learned that they are so creative, more creative then I ever was or will be for that fact.

I love how inventive my kids are, they will use any household item to use as a mic for their singing group or web show (that's a whole other story), or a metal bowl for a drum - you name my kids will think of some game to play.

Well with no school today or tomorrow they have invented this game called Hollywood, yes Hollywood don't ask where they came up with it or how it's played but all they seem to do is fight over who is driving the limo, yes they turned the kitchen chairs into a limo (see pics), and Madie is the Mom and Izaiah is the driver and Conner, Ryder and yes baby Preston are all pass angers in the limo.

The creative minds of children oh how you have to love them.

Preston's Milestones

Now that Preston has turned 6months old he seems to be doing so many new things. For one he can say Mama (which I am so proud of ) and on top of that he cut his first 2 teeth in the same day, that has been real fun :) oh and for a baby who is bf he sure can hold a bottle real well.

Halloween 08

I love and hate Halloween - I love the fact that the kids get to dress up and look so cute and when we go trick or treating they will get scared at some point in the night, which by the way they love as well. I hate the fact that they get a ton of candy and this year they did, Russ and I think they got at least 16lbs in candy (we compared the candy to how much the baby weights :) so know I get the joy of dealing with the constant "Can I have just one piece of candy" and of course depending on how the child has been that day depends on if they get a piece. If you know Russ and I we don't let our kids have the much sugar, they don't come down from the sugar high to well. So know I have to figure a way to get most of the candy out of the house with out the kids and Russ knowing this should be interesting.

This year the kids decided to go around the neighborhood rather than go to our churches Fall Festival of Funniness were we would have been nice and warm, oh well they had so much fun this year.

Here are some cute pics, enjoy * and yes you see all their candy in the bowls sitting in front of them and yes Preston fell a sleep half way through the night*